Your step-by-step guide to Carrying out Effective Android App Development

Android mobile app development is a self-sustaining innovation. Google’s homegrown operating software is the leading app publishing platform in the world by both revenue and market-share. Each day millions of new users adopt the Android OS enabled smartphones, which in turn increases the need for more Android apps.

In August 2017, Google has unveiled Android Oreo, the 8th significant system update and the 15th version of the Android OS. ‘O’ as it is popularly referred to, is user-friendly by design and the interface boasts of superior and relatively intuitive ease of use. Android app development continuously endeavors to give users the most powerful technology solutions to leverage their brand.

But what does it take to succeed on this wildly successful open source platform that welcomes enterprising developers by the hordes? Here are a few strategies that you must follow in order to achieve successful Android App Development:

1. Know your customer

The key to success in any business is understanding the end consumer. Your android app is no different. Apps built with a clear focus on fulfilling customer problems that have been previously remained unfulfilled have little room for failure. Before you undertake the Android app development process, identify your customer and zero-in on the problem your app will solve. This step is sector agnostic and should be done in all seriousness before a single line of code is written. Studying consumer behavior will save precious hours in the actual mobile app development pipeline and will help in the creation of an efficient minimum viable product (MVP) that can be tested.

2. Wire-framing

Before you start coding your way to digital glory, create wire-frames for the Android mobile app. Wire-framing is the act of putting pen to paper and drawing out the features of the app screen by screen. Create elaborate screens to elucidate how the app will look, the features it will host, boxes and button that appear as per consumer interaction, et cetera. The entire development team must participate in the wire-framing process to ensure effective delegation of responsibilities, which going forward creates ample checks & balances in the Android App development process to ensure quality control.

3. Create a feature-rich application

A successful Android app must be rich in features. Depending on the nature of the app and the target audience, the app must incorporate all features that a prospective user expects from the mobile application. For example, in current times, an instant messaging app that doesn’t allow users to share images would not be favored in comparison to another app that has this feature. In order to build a winning proposition, Android app developers must scour the competitive landscape and understand which features are in demand by users.

4. Testing the app

The importance of testing in the Android app development process cannot be stressed enough. It must be carried forward with utmost diligence before the launch of the app. Testing is a vital part that can troubleshoot coding errors and various bugs in the application. Several external threats can damage the internal app infrastructure and impact the performance of the app. Any app, big or small can be severely marred by bugs. Create crucial functional test cases and conduct the same in multiple test environments. By doing so you can keep the crash reports to a minimum and allow initial users to easily report time and environment of crashes.

5. Free App vs Paid App

Once the app is developed with the vital features intact, the app development company has to decide whether to release a free or paid version of the app. This is a crucial decision in the process of Android mobile app development. There are advantages and disadvantages to both strategy decisions. A common theme used among app development companies is to release a standard version of the app for free and then unlock additional features or upgrades for a charge since this creates an incentive for initial users to try the app. Another popular method of generating revenue is charging other app developers to buy ad space on your app page. An incumbent can buy banners to promote their app and attract new users thereby adding a revenue stream to your business model.

6. Marketing Your App Is Essential

You may have developed the most amazing app in the world as an Android app developer, but it’s no good if your customer doesn’t know about your product. It’s important to aggressively market your app to gain visibility. Conduct research within your category to gain an understanding of which strategies are effective in your focus group to get higher downloads. Employ relevant search engine optimization techniques and related keywords for the app page. The next step is to optimize front-end development to your advantage with the usage of the head and title tags and writing appropriate descriptions for the app to rank higher in Google play store to attract the attention of your target group. App localization and effective social media strategy will also be useful for higher visibility leading to more app downloads and higher conversion rates.